RIP, Alan Greenspan

Alan Greenspan, who steered the Federal Reserve​

through both boom and crisis, dies at 100 ​

Greenspan served, as the Fed Chair, under 4 US presidents, Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton and W.


He was also a jazz musician and married to journalist Andrea Mitchell



RIP

 

Born in Washington Heights in 1926 to a Jewish family, Greenspan studied clarinet and saxophone at Juilliard and toured briefly in a swing band before deciding he was a better economist than a musician. He was, by most accounts, correct.

He built a successful consulting firm, advised Gerald Ford as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, and arrived at the Fed in August 1987 as a Reagan appointee — a disciple of Ayn Rand who believed, almost theologically, in the self-correcting wisdom of markets.

Two months into the job, the stock market fell 22.6% in a single day. Black Monday was the largest one-day percentage decline in the history of the Dow. Greenspan’s response set the template for everything that followed: the Fed flooded the system with liquidity and issued a one-sentence statement affirming its readiness to serve as a source of support. The crisis passed in weeks and Greenspan’s reputation was born.